Girl Scout Cookies Now A Taxable Item Under New Louisiana Tax Law

When your neighborhood Girl Scout rings your doorbell to sell you boxes of delicious Girl Scout Cookies she might have offer Samoas, Thin Mints, a printed receipt, and a Form 1099. Now before anyone wearing a sash with lots of badges storms the capitol building let me explain.

The new tax rate increase that went into effect in Louisiana on Friday dispensed with numerous sales tax exemptions. In addition to the tax on Girl Scout Cookies your daily newspaper when purchased a grocery store, and even admission to various museums and exhibits around the state.

Anytime you change things there are bound to be hiccups. These hiccups are not only confusing to the general public but the state's business community is not really sure how to handle collections on some of these now taxable items.

And this is just putting an enormous amount of pressure on an already difficult sales tax system to navigate.

Those are the words of tax attorney Jason Decuir. Mr. Decuir told the Louisiana Radio Network that if vendors don't collect the right amount of taxes that could wreak havoc with the final figures they are supposed to report to the state. If the vendors are short, then the state comes up short and that won't close the budget gap.

How real a possibility is this? Very real. If you have businesses that are now required to collect taxes that have never had to collect taxes before, chances are there are going to be mistakes.

Meals that are served on college campuses, those used to be exempt from tax and those meals will be subject to different rates of tax.

What's next? Obviously the legislature will have to reword the current legislation and vote again to change it or they will just let the tax exemptions ride. That means that your local Girl Scout could soon be subject to an audit.